getting my letters, and there was one lying there for
you, so I said I would bring it, as it was marked 'Urgent.'
It seemed wrong to leave it there until to-morrow, I thought it might
be important."

She handed him the envelope, but she did not turn and go. "I think
I'll step in and speak to Mrs. Dawson for a moment or so," she said
quietly, "just while you look at your letter, then I'll go, that you
may talk it over with her."

She felt that her little scheme was rather a clumsy one, but she had
a strong conviction that it might be well for her to be there just
then. "I will go inside," and she left him standing there in the
autumn sunlight staring at the letter he held in his trembling hands.
He turned it over several times before he would make up his mind to
open it. There was always a dread overshadowing him in those days of
what he might have to hear.

Miss Grace had barely got through her first greetings, and declined
Patience's offer of a cup of tea "fresh-made," when the door was
flung open and Thomas almost fell in. In trouble he would have
remembered his wife's affliction, and have hedged her round with
every care, but joy was another thing. It was on joy that he had
built his hopes of restoring her to her former self--and here it was,
in his grasp!

"Mother!--Jessie!--I've heard from her!! Mother, mother, do you
hear, there's news of her at last?"

Miss Grace stepped nearer and stood by the poor old woman, laying a
firm hand on her shoulder, she could see how she was shaking.
"If it is good news, tell her quickly," she said anxiously.

Thomas read the expression of Miss Grace's face, and recovered
himself at once. His care for Patience was always his first thought.

"Good! My dear, yes, good as good can be. Better than I ever hoped
for. She is well, and she's coming back, to _us_, mother! do you
hear? She is coming back for good. It doesn't seem possible, it
doesn't seem as though it can be true, yet it says so on the letter.
Hark to it--in't it like the dear child herself speaking?"

The terrified look which had come into Patience's face died away.
She could not speak, but she put out one shaking hand and thrust it
into that of her husband, and so they read the glad news. It was a
curious, excited, incoherent letter, but it told them all they wanted
to know, for the time, at any rate.

"My Dearest Granp,

"I have been longing to write all this time and tell you where I